Learning at home

What children learn at home will affect them all their lives. Sometimes this is positive. If parents and friends talk often and openly about interesting things, the child will learn to understand and converse quickly. If not, they wont. If parents and others discuss pros and cons, they will learn to make decisions. If not they wont. If children critically discuss TV programmes, they will quickly become TV critics. This is all before they go to nursery school. Throughout the years of schools, discussions like this are important.

If however their experience of conversation is to be told off all the time, they will learn both that they are not accepted and valued, and that the purpose of conversation is mainly to criticise others. If they understand that they will get their own way by blackmail and tantrum, they will become expert at these. This will affect the kind of adults they will become. If you know adults like this, you can guess what their childhood might have been like. By then, it is hard to change.

If your children like themselves, and are helpful to you and to others, you are getting it right. If not, ask yourselves what needs to change for them to become like this.